Electronic addresses such as e-mail addresses and Internet addresses are typically associated with particular entities or people, and can quickly become outdated. E-mail addresses used for transfer of e-mail according to the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and Post Office Protocol (POP), for example, can be Internet Service Provider (ISP) specific, and accordingly are quite often simply abandoned whenever an e-mail user changes ISPs. Although one would normally advise friends, family, and business contacts when relocating to a new home, the same care is not often taken keep electronic addresses current.
Those familiar with electronic addresses, and particularly e-mail addresses, will also appreciate the high numbers of communications which can be received, including those that have not been solicited. Unwanted e-mail messages can quickly accumulate, making it more difficult for users to identify important messages and process their communications.
For these and other reasons, electronic addresses—particularly e-mail addresses—are often regarded as an unreliable transfer mechanism for important information. Financial institutions and other businesses, for instance, tend to be reluctant to use e-mail addresses and other electronic addresses for official client or customer communications.
Mailing addresses to physical locations, on the other hand, represent a preferred communication channel for many organizations, and accordingly, businesses and individuals alike tend to be more careful to ensure that mailing address information is kept up to date.
In addition, whereas mailing addresses are normally associated with geographic or physical locations, electronic addresses have no such association. For example, an advertiser that wishes to target a particular geographic area can relatively easily have information delivered to all mailing addresses in a neighbourhood based on street addresses or a postal code for instance. Although an electronic campaign would often save both resources and costs, conducting a geographically targeted campaign using electronic addresses would be difficult without prior knowledge of a complete, accurate and current electronic address for every intended recipient.
In some cases, information is time-critical, which would favor electronic distribution over mail-based distribution. Public safety warnings in a specific area, for example, could be distributed to electronic addresses very quickly, but only if public safety authorities maintained accurate electronic address records.
Currently available location-based electronic addressing schemes are limited only to e-mail messages. In one instance, where an intended recipient's e-mail address is not known, a street address or location may instead be used as an address in an e-mail message. However, these schemes are prone to some of the same shortcomings as conventional electronic addressing, in that e-mail messaging is tied to existing e-mail accounts, and addresses are not protected from use for unsolicited communications.